CSS Incorrupt
Jul. 2nd, 2011 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethSo this explorer ship is sent out with the magic fuel tank, the stargate that refuels constantly from a planet sized tank. Maybe the Fleet is wasting a potential ecosystem, or maybe they're using meltwater from under the glaciers of a highly volcanic moon. The ships just know the water keeps coming. Its fall gives them electrical energy and pushing it out the back gives them thrust. Firehose ships.
They look a bit like the Gherkin building, though this Explorer is only half the height. The outer shell is advanced materials, tougher than diamonds, but it looks like glass. The inner shell is designed to stop laser weapons, so there aren't many windows for the crew. There are airlock doors in three places, above between below. There's also a collar or two for the attitude jets. The main engine is underneath, the thrust defining which end is under. But if they're generating power from the fall then the fuel tank, the stargate and its pond, will be up in the top. Big crystal gherkin with waterfalls flowing down inside. Okay, probably not actual free flowing waterfalls, probably great big pipes, but either way, could be pretty.
There's enough green space inside to grow food for the crew indefinitely. I know they grow potato, I don't know what else. Also they have chickens, to make eggs. And in the heart of the ship is an oak tree, older than the ship itself, a piece of Fleet continuity.
The bunks and all swing freely to compensate for g shifts, but it's not designed for spin gravity, so there's no octagons, no spin and burn deck. It is designed for zero g so there's a lot of handholds and an assumption you will sometimes step on the ceiling. Everything is modular, swappable, and functional. Anything decorative is probably also alive, and adding its bit to the air supply. They're more of a talisman than a backup supply, but a lot of people feel easier knowing they have their bit of green.
The command deck is between the shuttles and the cryo chambers. In case of emergency the officers can get preserved or get out the fastest. It's also up nearest the nose and the last ditch emergency exit that is their stargate, but that's not on most people's personal plans. The gate they're meant to drop when they reach somewhere interesting is down the other end of the ship. If something had gone that horribly wrong they could take their pick of vacuum or pressure. Spacers prefer vacuum, and knowing ships are waiting on the other side. Communication also goes through that lower gate. Unlike in spin ships, on a constant thrust Fleet ship, 'rear' and 'lower' are the same, as are 'nose' and 'upper'. This takes some getting used to for the station born. Merchanters are at least used to g shift and will remember they're walking on the burn deck, but stationers in the back of their minds think 'out' equals 'down', and can get confused in a crisis. 'Out' on the Explorer class just means where the armour and fuel water live.
There are lifts, but also big spiral ramps, because repair equipment has to get there somehow if the lifts go wrong. The ramps have a series of automatic doors that you have to open manually if you approach them too fast. They're meant to be a safety feature, so if you're falling the relatively soft door will catch you, but most of the people who live on the ship think they're just bloody annoying. Expect the doors to be creatively borked wherever working people have something needs doing.
The merchanter rainbow corridors or habitat ring spin curves are useful guides in variable or spin gravity. Fleet just need an up and down. The ceiling is a different and less pleasant texture, as well as a different color, so you'd know it dark or light. The floor is soft and resilient, the burn deck rubber stuff, because it can still slam up at you if the engines kick in. But I don't know if it's that orange flame color the merchanters use. Fleet uniforms are dark green or sort of burgundy red, it might not quite work. Officer blacks can go with anything.
If the ship expects to get banged around then things like seatbelts and not having protruding bits to get banged into will feature in the design. The Enterprise D looks like they expect to never wobble. CSS Incorrupt expects resistance. Control chairs can swing to compensate for new g orientations, and in emergencies can seal shut and survive for 24 hours independent of the rest of the ship. That's a GURPS rule but a fun one. The command staff, all the ship officers, sit in little sealable single seat pods. You can seal them in by tweaking the environmental controls, so the whole bridge doesn't choke if the air goes wrong, but it's rather hard to cut them out of control. You can imprison people but only knowing all the good buttons are on the inside with them. Better to get them in their quarters, at least then they'd need to hack from secondary pads. Best is the brig, which has no computer pads and deliberate layers to cut off signals. Though if you're really serious about that you end up cutting visual and sound as well, else they can still get commands out. Brigs as a dark box? Would make it the best place to plot, if you trusted whoever you were meeting there!
I just looked up brig and Wiki and dictionary.com agree it's a US Navy and US Marines term, deriving from the sort of ship they used for prison ships. From there it got to US written Starfleet and my brain. But if it's not a Commonwealth or British then I don't want it in my Commonhealth Fleet. ... which will take some work, because US popular culture is everywhere. British Army prisons are called the Glasshouse, which leads to me imagining the cells somewhere between the armour and the outer hull. Safe and secure, and nowhere you'd want to be if things went wrong inside. But it lets you signal to other ships if you have someone watching through the walls. Also there's a lot of associations with the term that just don't apply, I think. I couldn't find a term for Royal Navy or Royal Marines except Cells. Confined to ships' cells or barracks detention block. Perfectly useful terms I shall attempt to remember. Thesaurus.com also gives black hole, can, cooler, house of correction, inside, lockup, pen, penitentiary, rack, reformatory, solitary, up the river. ... the only river on one of these ships being the one in the fuel pipes with the hydroelectric generators. ... also, I just got one pun in River Song. Inside would only work if the cells were in the most protected bit of the ship, and really, no. But Outside makes a good inversion. Black hole would apply for the no-escape and the communications blackout, but be a bit extreme if confinement to cells was a punishment you could serve and leave without getting kicked out the Fleet. The words for where they lock you up have history and ideology in them. Does the Commonhealth send people to the reformatory or penitentiary? Is it about correction, or punishment? They're all about restoring purity, do they have a new word? ... I have absolutely no doubt they have cells. And they use cryo as the step between confinement and death. It's a lot closer to death.
I'd say poking around with ship design is more fun than actual writing, but getting the hang of the ship design nailed down some plot I needed and suggested a lot of other things that happen in reaction to that event. Physics can be fun that way.
They look a bit like the Gherkin building, though this Explorer is only half the height. The outer shell is advanced materials, tougher than diamonds, but it looks like glass. The inner shell is designed to stop laser weapons, so there aren't many windows for the crew. There are airlock doors in three places, above between below. There's also a collar or two for the attitude jets. The main engine is underneath, the thrust defining which end is under. But if they're generating power from the fall then the fuel tank, the stargate and its pond, will be up in the top. Big crystal gherkin with waterfalls flowing down inside. Okay, probably not actual free flowing waterfalls, probably great big pipes, but either way, could be pretty.
There's enough green space inside to grow food for the crew indefinitely. I know they grow potato, I don't know what else. Also they have chickens, to make eggs. And in the heart of the ship is an oak tree, older than the ship itself, a piece of Fleet continuity.
The bunks and all swing freely to compensate for g shifts, but it's not designed for spin gravity, so there's no octagons, no spin and burn deck. It is designed for zero g so there's a lot of handholds and an assumption you will sometimes step on the ceiling. Everything is modular, swappable, and functional. Anything decorative is probably also alive, and adding its bit to the air supply. They're more of a talisman than a backup supply, but a lot of people feel easier knowing they have their bit of green.
The command deck is between the shuttles and the cryo chambers. In case of emergency the officers can get preserved or get out the fastest. It's also up nearest the nose and the last ditch emergency exit that is their stargate, but that's not on most people's personal plans. The gate they're meant to drop when they reach somewhere interesting is down the other end of the ship. If something had gone that horribly wrong they could take their pick of vacuum or pressure. Spacers prefer vacuum, and knowing ships are waiting on the other side. Communication also goes through that lower gate. Unlike in spin ships, on a constant thrust Fleet ship, 'rear' and 'lower' are the same, as are 'nose' and 'upper'. This takes some getting used to for the station born. Merchanters are at least used to g shift and will remember they're walking on the burn deck, but stationers in the back of their minds think 'out' equals 'down', and can get confused in a crisis. 'Out' on the Explorer class just means where the armour and fuel water live.
There are lifts, but also big spiral ramps, because repair equipment has to get there somehow if the lifts go wrong. The ramps have a series of automatic doors that you have to open manually if you approach them too fast. They're meant to be a safety feature, so if you're falling the relatively soft door will catch you, but most of the people who live on the ship think they're just bloody annoying. Expect the doors to be creatively borked wherever working people have something needs doing.
The merchanter rainbow corridors or habitat ring spin curves are useful guides in variable or spin gravity. Fleet just need an up and down. The ceiling is a different and less pleasant texture, as well as a different color, so you'd know it dark or light. The floor is soft and resilient, the burn deck rubber stuff, because it can still slam up at you if the engines kick in. But I don't know if it's that orange flame color the merchanters use. Fleet uniforms are dark green or sort of burgundy red, it might not quite work. Officer blacks can go with anything.
If the ship expects to get banged around then things like seatbelts and not having protruding bits to get banged into will feature in the design. The Enterprise D looks like they expect to never wobble. CSS Incorrupt expects resistance. Control chairs can swing to compensate for new g orientations, and in emergencies can seal shut and survive for 24 hours independent of the rest of the ship. That's a GURPS rule but a fun one. The command staff, all the ship officers, sit in little sealable single seat pods. You can seal them in by tweaking the environmental controls, so the whole bridge doesn't choke if the air goes wrong, but it's rather hard to cut them out of control. You can imprison people but only knowing all the good buttons are on the inside with them. Better to get them in their quarters, at least then they'd need to hack from secondary pads. Best is the brig, which has no computer pads and deliberate layers to cut off signals. Though if you're really serious about that you end up cutting visual and sound as well, else they can still get commands out. Brigs as a dark box? Would make it the best place to plot, if you trusted whoever you were meeting there!
I just looked up brig and Wiki and dictionary.com agree it's a US Navy and US Marines term, deriving from the sort of ship they used for prison ships. From there it got to US written Starfleet and my brain. But if it's not a Commonwealth or British then I don't want it in my Commonhealth Fleet. ... which will take some work, because US popular culture is everywhere. British Army prisons are called the Glasshouse, which leads to me imagining the cells somewhere between the armour and the outer hull. Safe and secure, and nowhere you'd want to be if things went wrong inside. But it lets you signal to other ships if you have someone watching through the walls. Also there's a lot of associations with the term that just don't apply, I think. I couldn't find a term for Royal Navy or Royal Marines except Cells. Confined to ships' cells or barracks detention block. Perfectly useful terms I shall attempt to remember. Thesaurus.com also gives black hole, can, cooler, house of correction, inside, lockup, pen, penitentiary, rack, reformatory, solitary, up the river. ... the only river on one of these ships being the one in the fuel pipes with the hydroelectric generators. ... also, I just got one pun in River Song. Inside would only work if the cells were in the most protected bit of the ship, and really, no. But Outside makes a good inversion. Black hole would apply for the no-escape and the communications blackout, but be a bit extreme if confinement to cells was a punishment you could serve and leave without getting kicked out the Fleet. The words for where they lock you up have history and ideology in them. Does the Commonhealth send people to the reformatory or penitentiary? Is it about correction, or punishment? They're all about restoring purity, do they have a new word? ... I have absolutely no doubt they have cells. And they use cryo as the step between confinement and death. It's a lot closer to death.
I'd say poking around with ship design is more fun than actual writing, but getting the hang of the ship design nailed down some plot I needed and suggested a lot of other things that happen in reaction to that event. Physics can be fun that way.